Mc NAMARA'S PROJECT

[OLDNAVYMCPO]

Today, I was scanning a Veteran's web site dealing with my command during Viet Nam. I ran across the name of a man( just a kid then) who had worked for me during that period. The name instantly brought back a flood of unpleasant memories. You see, he was one of Robert McNamara's Project 100,000 or the "Moron Corps" as they were rudely nicknamed.

Robert McNamara, LBJ's defense secretary, was an intellectually arrogant "whiz kid" who was responsible for some stupid and disastrous acts during the Viet Nam war. One such act was the recruitment of low IQ applicants, we're talking below room temperature(60's). Forty-one percent were blacks which was the root of a lot of racial tensions including race riots aboard ships ( near mutiny on the USS Constellation in '73). Forty percent of recruits were trained for combat and 25 percent were trained for general service.

The general public was unaware of this terrible trick played on the individuals and on the military in general.

Thought you ought to know.

 

[Snapping Twig]

With a middle name of Strange, he just has to be a little bit.

I never respected him.

He gave us the M16 which led to the deaths of so many of our troops.

He knows so much that just isn't so.

Thought he was the brightest light, we knew him as a dim bulb.

 

[Onomea]

More on Project 100,000 here: Project 100,000 - Wikipedia

 

[Cyrano]

A lot of them had criminal records too. I was in a Nike missile battalion; there was literally nothing you could do with them; you didn't want them near a radar, missiles were off limits, put them in the mess hall and everybody got sick, put them in the motor pool and they'd wreck every car there. Years later, I was working with a staff sergeant, he was a good man. His records had Project 100,000 on them, and to avoid the stigma, I had new records made without the Project 100,000. A few of them made good soldiers, but 90% didn't.

 

[LVSteve]

Hadn't heard of the 100,000 project before. I'll add it to my list of McNamara's major felonies that include:-

1) Thinking the F-111 could be a bomber and air-superiority fighter.

2) The M-16 "no need for a chromed chamber" debacle.

3) "Sortie rate" air war planning during the Vietnam war, probably the worst of the lot.

 

[rwsmith]

Not my favorite person.....

The 'brightest and the best' got us into a lot of trouble. I'll say no more for we are treading on political ground.

 

[amazingflapjack]

If I remember correctly, McNamara's 100K was not just degenerates-jail birds, and morons-it was the result of lowering the draft standards. That included people like me who had a physical deferment-in my case deformed feet-who were suddenly just fine for military service. They also accepted 4F's who wanted to volunteer-and looked at those below and above the usual age range that was preferred. The Blackstone Rangers street gang of Chicago fame was rounded up in a sweep by military police and brought en mass to Ft. Bragg for basic along with myself and other degenerate morons; some of who became pretty darn good soldiers-and some of whom gave their lives for their country. But, it was a bad idea-as wars and the things they consist of always are. Shucks...

 

[vonn]

Had not been aware of this before. Explains some things. Further comments will bring out the bell.

 

[Boox]

Oh, I remember it well...I was an instructor in the 5TH CST Brigade at Ft. Dix. The cooks school no less. There were a lot of the project 100,000 that went through the cooks school, they were too dumb for the infantry for crying out loud.
Had to give them 10 minute breaks every hour or so and it was not uncommon for them to be snorting cocaine on the breaks. Many of our trainees seemed to know their way around Newark and Philly, so they often took nightly bus rides to either destination to resupply. The worst part was that once they graduated, they were still to dumb to be cooks so guess where they wound up, most got orders for apo San Francisco destined for certain southeast asian country. then they would disappear while on leave and once caught they were returned to us. We had a separate 'holdover' barracks for them that was a constant dilemma.
Yeah, the good old days!!??

 

[JayCeeNC]

We had one in our unit in Okinawa.
Not sure what his specialty field was, but they put him to work filing papers in alphabetical order in the Orderly Room.
Didn't work out too well; he didn't know the alphabet.
Last I saw him, he was mowing grass around the Squadron area.

 

[eb07]

 

[THE PILGRIM]

Was standing in my Buddy Frank's Gunstore in Ft. Collins, CO.
Frank- retired Navy, Gaudacanal Canal, one of the first Navy Jet Pilots, etc.
Two Navy recruiters come in and they are mad!
They are ranting about this program.
Frank introduces me to them and says, He's active Air Force.
The recruiters say to me say, you are also getting some!
I say something like, I hope we can keep them away from the airplanes.

 

[Ozark Marine]

I didn't know that to enlist in the U.S. military we had to be angels and collage grads. I sure wasn't.
Marine Corps boot camp during the Viet Nam war molded society's H.S. dropouts and gang members into the worlds finest fighting force.
I don't give a hoot about Mc Namara.

 

[Ozark Marine]

A lot of them had criminal records too. I was in a Nike missile battalion; there was literally nothing you could do with them; you didn't want them near a radar, missiles were off limits, put them in the mess hall and everybody got sick, put them in the motor pool and they'd wreck every car there. Years later, I was working with a staff sergeant, he was a good man. His records had Project 100,000 on them, and to avoid the stigma, I had new records made without the Project 100,000. A few of them made good soldiers, but 90% didn't.

Falsifying official government records and military SRB's while still active duty?
Isn't there something in the UCMJ about such actions?

 

[PALADIN85020]

With a middle name of Strange, he just has to be a little bit.

I never respected him.

He gave us the M16 which led to the deaths of so many of our troops.

He knows so much that just isn't so.

Thought he was the brightest light, we knew him as a dim bulb.

He also shut down Springfield Armory, one sterling bastion of small arms development. Now, it's just some old buildings and a museum. Will never forgive the idiot for that.

John

 

[muddocktor]

I was just a kid when McNamara was doing his damage, but do remember seeing him on tv a few times and he struck me as a "legend in his own mind" type. Like he thought his stuff didn't stink. And that's a pretty bad attitude if a kid can pick up on it.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

I was in the Army 1967-1971, the harshest comment on the Army I served came from the Ofiicial Report issued in 1971, which, in addressing the Army's very serious morale problems, especially the problem of drug and alcohol use, made the refreshingly candid admission that:
"Most jobs in the Army require little or no intelligence."
In comparing notes with other veterans from the era it seems the Army we served in was nothing but a giant Detail Force. One veteran who served 1964-1966 said he was in an artillery battalion that was converted to a missile battalion-"We got very little training ." and "I was in the Army for a little over 700 days and I must have been on KP for at least fifty of them."
And I like to quote the retired Colonel Armor I met in 1981 who said "I saw training go from the one thing everybody worried about to the one thing nobody worried about."

 

[OLDNAVYMCPO]

The SOP for the Navy at the time was that if you didn't score high enough on the general intelligence test, you were sent to the fleet without schooling or as we call it, rate training. Then once arriving at the assigned command the non-rate would be assigned to a detail such as mess cooking (kp), laundry, or ship's stores moving boxes of food, munitions or hardware. A typical detail assignment would last three to six months. During that period, the non-rate is expected to study for and test for advancement. Failing that, the non-rate would either remain on that same **** detail or be moved to another such as cleaning or chipping paint. This would continue until the non-rate was promoted or given a General or Administrative discharge.

The problem with those sailors with a low IQ is that they had no hope of getting out of that vicious cycle. Most had no hope of passing a rating exam. If they slacked off or rebelled, they faced disciplinary action. They of course then felt discriminated against. Few just excepted their fate. Many became disciplinary problems to the extent they were forced out, other had such a lack of common sense that they put themselves in harms way and got severely injured or caused a danger to others. Shipboard is a very dangerous place even in peacetime, if you don't keep your wits about you. Many others just couldn't cope and went AWOL.

Its no wonder that McNamara's 100,000 suffered a disproportionate number of combat causalities, close quarters combat requires you to have your wits about you constantly. To do otherwise endangers you and those around you.

I don't fault the individual caught up in these circumstances. The blame entirely falls on the shoulders of the short sightedness of the leadership. My bitch is entirely with McNamara.

 

[the ringo kid]

^^^^^^^^^^The modern day version of those 100,000--are becoming Correctional Officers for the State of Texas increasingly over the last 20 years. Job-seekers with quality were few and far in between, and they needed "warm bodies" to get us up to par. Most of these didnt last long-so we were always very short-handed.

 

[rog8732]

Those "project 100,000" recruits may have been intended to bolster the rank and file soldiers; but from what I know of the way the Viet-Nam debacle was run; more than a few musta found their way into the hierarchy of command.

You sure McNamara didn't bring one or two on staff as his chief advisers ?

 

[Cyrano]

Falsifying official government records and military SRB's while still active duty?
Isn't there something in the UCMJ about such actions?

I'm not losing any sleep over it.

 

[DWalt]

The military is not the only organization that had similar personnel problems. Back in the big oil boom of the 1970s-1980s, we were so busy we had to hire literally anyone who wanted a job working on well servicing crews. A high percentage were the worst of the worst - dopers, gang members, guys who had done hard time, alcoholics, illiterates, and mental defectives of every kind. It was a nightmare. Turnover rates were astronomical, job quality vanished, and accident rates soared. And many of those people proved virtually impossible to train for any jobs other than simple manual labor and couldn't be trusted to do anything right without extensive supervision.

 

[Frank46]

I served in the Navy from '64-'67 and while it never became generally known of this program there more than just a few dustups on the mess decks. The brass took a dim view of such things and captain's mast would be the final straw. Funny thing by late '66 on our way to our westpac cruise things seemed to have calmed down and fights on the messdecks were rare. So maybe the trouble makers were transfered to other distant commands where they could cause trouble for other commands. Our ship when on deployment held 4500 to 5000 counting airwing and ships company. Got so bad waiting in the chowlines that we complained to our superiors that after an hour waiting and no meal in sight we'd leave the chowline and return to our engineering spaces. They did open up the forward messdecks which basically did hamburgers and hot dogs with bug juice. Once the air wing departed after we arrived at our home port things got back to normal. And last med cruise before the end of MY deployment they opened up again the forward mess decks. Lesson learned "can't lead them if you can't feed them"

 

[7shooter]

My cousin was a part of the McNamara's 100,000. He was borderline IQ and was a kind gentle farm kid. I couldn't believe they drafted him and what's worse send him to Viet Nam.

He lived but has spent the rest of his life with a dazed look on his face. He cannot talk about what he went through.

It was cruel to send a kid like him to war.

 

[njr]

My cousin was a part of the McNamara's 100,000. He was borderline IQ and was a kind gentle farm kid. I couldn't believe they drafted him and what's worse send him to Viet Nam.

He lived but has spent the rest of his life with a dazed look on his face. He cannot talk about what he went through.

It was cruel to send a kid like him to war.

Have you looked into therapy for him?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[forindooruseonly]

Its no wonder that McNamara's 100,000 suffered a disproportionate number of combat causalities, close quarters combat requires you to have your wits about you constantly. To do otherwise endangers you and those around you.

Statistically speaking, Project 100,000 soldiers were twice as likely to be killed in combat than other soldiers - according to the Pentagon's own studies.

Furthermore, Project 100,000 soldiers showed a disproportionate difficulty in adjusting to their post-war lives, and all that entails.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

"There are no bad soldiers, only bad officers." Napoleon
"A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the
contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops."
John J. Pershing
Where the presence of morons in the ranks becomes a problems is not at enlistment time but at RE-enlistment time. In 1980 it was revealed that 46% of the Army's first-term recruits were Cat IVs-that led to a hue and cry. Much less attention was paid to the revelation in 1982 that 46% of the Army's first term RE-enlistees were Cat IVs. People I know who served as EM and junior officers then had few kind things to say about the NCOs they had to put up with , finding far too many to fit the stereotype of the Army lifer as an alcoholic oaf and malingerer-and a loser-incapable of holding an honest job. But if all the Army offers is three years of scutwork and tedium, who do you think you'll get ?

 

[Dennis The B]

The debate over McNamara's closing of the Springfield Arsenal has raged for years. However, the Arsenal had developed a "not invented here" mentality for weapons development. If it didn't resemble the M1/M14 platform, it wasn't a battle rifle.

Springfield badly lagged in adjusting weapons design to new battle tactics. There wasn't the need for a 1000 yard/meter rifle. European combat was near-fighting, as was the growing need for a true "jungle" rifle. Fire fight engagements dropped to less than 100 yards. The Pentagon wasn't without fault.

While the Garand platform was sturdy, it was also over weight.

Eugene Stoner, et al, were looking at alternative materials and calibers, but the Pentagon couldn't be persuaded to look at his ideas. While the first of Stoner's creations was in 7.62mm NATO, he quickly saw the advantages of a smaller caliber.

McNamara's background was in statistical analysis, was an Air Force veteran, and helped save Ford Motor Company in the early 1950's as one of Henry Ford, II's, "whiz kids".

However, he lacked the political acumen to survive politically. LBJ was enamored with being "in command", and it drove a lot of bad military decisions.

 

[tlawler]

My dad distrusted McNamara from the start. Then when my brother (a Green Beret) was killed over there, he hated him with a passion until the day he died.

 

[Mule Packer]

Robert McNamara, LBJ's defense secretary, was an intellectually arrogant "whiz kid" who was responsible for some stupid and disastrous acts during the Viet Nam war. One such act was the recruitment of low IQ applicants, we're talking below room temperature(60's).

There ya go, folks. If we fail to study history, we're bound to repeat it. This exact thing was addressed in 431 B.C. by Thucydides in The History of the Peloponnesian War. And I quote:

"A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its wars fought by fools."​

Obviously McNamara the "whiz kid" must've flunked history.